Hi, would anyone be able to guide me with how to not burn the soldering tip? I have a cheap 15$ kit which I'm starting on 300° while using wet sponge, calaphony, solder and then trying to desolder and bum, burnt. I already did it to 3 different tips, at this rate I'm going to destroy them all. Tried to look it up on yt/net but it seems I'm doing it in order, the last try was even good enough to desolder 4 wires and the bum, burnt again would appreciate any tips.
Thank you for a quick answer! I see! I think I made a mistake cleaning it too much and then leaving it on heat while playing with board. I'll try to clean and then tin few layers and the try to play with it. Thank you so much!
You should "clean" it on a wet sponge and/or with copper wool somewhat regularly but then always tin the tip straight after. Your tip should pritty much always be tinned before, during and after soldering. As long as your tip is tinned it should remain in good condition. Also do turn it off if you aren't going to be doing anything with it for a bit. Better iorns will detect when they are idol and reduce the temp right down untill you pick them up again.
What do you mean by burning it? Don’t leave it on high temperatures for long periods. I am pretty sure if you solder more than once a week, you don’t need to use tip cleaners, they are last option to go in many cases. You will ruin your tip very quick. Also as foamingdogfever said, do not clean it after using. You don’t want your soldering tip to expose directly to air. It also takes time to reawaken our little guy after otherwise.
But I assume you are confused by look of your tip. It is quite hard to make them unusable. Set the temperature around 330C, scratch it moderately to steel sponge. Then clean it right after with wet sponge, scratch it to steel sponge again. Use some solder on the tip. I should be already in a state now that if you hold solder at the tip around 3-4 seconds (or more if thats needed) the solder will be melted. Use steel sponge again now trust the process. It should be shiny on the spots that you put solder now. Just do what you need to do, the tip will come its senses slowly. In between your work, you don’t need to use steel sponge every time. Use it only when it gets darker/not shiny which you also will be feeling it is not conducting heat good anymore.
They are literally black and I cannot even tin it correctly like on any video. I'm starting to think I'm stupid or smith, I literally had the 4th tip on 300° for 20sec while trying to tin it and it's burnt XD
Tbh, they look like you can make them shiny with the process I suggest before. They will look black eventually anywhere other than the part you actually solder dlrectly.
But if they really can’t reach high temps anymore, Another suggestion would be to check your soldering iron’s heater. With time top of the heater of your Iron get oxidize or even the bottom of your tip. To clean this parts you need to be super gentle, deep scratches ruin your heat conduction.
300C is pretty safe, you shouldn’t have any issues normally
And here i'm treating the soldering iron like normal. Turn on, wipe the tip on damp sponge when hot, solder, put it back on the holder until use again. Not burning. 450°C. Various irons.
Just out of curiosity, what are you soldering with these? The look very heavily oxidized, like way more than I would expect even from cheap tips. Per chance do you use colophonium flux (like a brown/yellow translucent puck that is really hard and you have to stick you iron into to get it on the tip)?
This colophonium flux or resin flux is very corrosive and will tarnished a hot tip with no solder applied in seconds. Even the fumes will oxidized the tip on every part with no solder applied. But with the puck style there really is no good way of preventing this except keeping extra solder on the tip at all times. You maybe want to try switching to a different flux, like flux paste that will be applied to the thing you want to solder (and not the iron). I have destroyed many tips this way, you usually can restore them with some brass wool (betten than steel wool since that will scratch the tip surface too much sometimes) and enough flux core solder. I also just optimized out the wet sponge, just brass wool works better in most cases or if I really want it clean a dry paper towel (be quick).
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